4.16.2009

Lots of updates are coming in from Objectivist bloggers about their experiences at Tea Party protests around the country. They're both inspiring and informative, so I'm going to collect as many as I can find and post them here.

I didn't attend the event here in Boston, though I would have liked to at least stop by. I've been debating whether this whole Tea Party "movement" will be successful at all (see yesterday's post). However, Myrhaf made a comment on the post about the Dallas event (see link below) that is interesting food for thought. He said:

Robert Tracinski says protests are important because they send politicians a message that is not being heard. If that is true, then given the liberal bias of the MSM, the Tea Party protests are the most important demonstrations of our time. They are far more important (and more moral) than the idiotic, nihilist violence of the anarchists who want to destroy capitalism.

Myrhaf is dead on with this statement of the moral superiority of these protests. Time will tell if his speculation about their historical importance is correct, but for now, let's focus on some of the good stuff that happened yesterday.

OBloggers at Tea Party Protests:

(Cleveland and Canton, OH) Tea Party Summary: Brian describes highly successful outreach efforts at two protests in Ohio, with photos and some good anecdotes. Summarizing his group's successes, he says, "In all, we handed out over 20 copies of Atlas Shrugged, over 40 copies of our booklet, and dozens of business cards. We got on a couple radio shows, one local TV news segment, and were interviewed by a small local newspaper, all to spread our name. And it’s working - the emails are already pouring in, with people interested in future meetups, book reviews, etc."

(Boise, ID) My 3.5 Minutes of Fame at a Tax Day Tea Party Protest: Greg Perkins from Noodlefood was the lead-off speaker at the Boise event! Only the last bit of his speech was captured in the video clip, but I recommend watching it if only for the cheer that goes up when he mentioned Atlas Shrugged. I never thought I'd hear something like that.

(Dallas, TX) Atlas At Dallas Tea Party: Blogger dismuke attended the Dallas protest and noted that the speech of the even organizer "concluded by quoting John Galt’s oath: “I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.” I was a little stunned that I was actually watching it."

(Denver, CO) Denver Tax Day Tea Party: Ari Armstrong has a series of posts about the protest in Denver, a lot of photos, and he says he'll have audio and/or video up soon.

(New York City, NY) Raising a teacup for freedom: Stella Daily was there, as said, "It was great to see that, even in this liberal-packed city, there were at least a few thousand people turned out to protest the government's outrageous spending spree."

(New York City, NY) New York Tea Party: Galileo Blogs carried signs in NYC, and said, "I was pleased overall by the event. It was remarkably secular. There were few references to God and the conservative Republicans only showed themselves in a tentative manner." I wonder if the events in the Midwest and South had the same secular quality? The Northeast is the most consistently secular area of the country, so I'd guess that was the reason few religious conservatives showed up. There just aren't very many of them in NYC.

(Boston, MA) Tax Day Tea Party '09: Jared Rhoads of The Lucidicus Project went to the second of two Boston protests. The first was around noon on Boston Common, and then there was a late afternoon protest at Christopher Columbus Park on the waterfront. This one was sponsored by (or at least promoted by) conservative talk radio station WTKK 96.9. I'm curious which protest had a bigger turnout.

(San Jose, CA) San Jose Tea Party: Kyle and Anne took photos of the San Jose rally, and took a number of good photos. Kyle also echoes what many are saying, namely that people are "very unhappy with where they see the country going, but they lack ideas to explain why the country is going that way. Lots of outrage, little reasoning." which of course highlights how important it is for Objectivists to provide the right ideas.

Take a look in the comments for updates from San Francisco and St. Louis.

I'll update this post if I find more write-ups. Leave a note in the comments if you find one I've missed.

UPDATE: Doug Reich at The Rational Capitalist posted a reaction to the pitiful media coverage of the protests. He began the post with a sentence that I think should be the standard intro to any piece that catalogs the sad state of our biased media:

I went for a look in St. Louis and according to the Park Rangers around 6000-7000 people were there. Saw lots of good signs such as those mentioned in other posts. I thought that the event itself was co-opted somewhat by the local conservative talk radio station, but the protesters in general seemed less Republican and more fed up.

Much was made of the new DHS report, which probably garnered the largest sustained negative reactions. Turns out law-abiding citizens don't like being called terrorists by government bureaucrats

My biggest gripe in regard to the speakers was that their objections were superficial and they were twisting themselves like pretzels in an attempt to justify themselves in the name of "the children" in order to legitimize themselve as being altruistic. (Note: No one ever explicitly mentioned altruism.)

As far as religion goes.. I saw a few anti-abortion types out peddling their schlock, but they seemed nearly as out of place as the leftists who showed up near one of the news vehicles at some point. (This is random, but apparently those guys don't like being asked if they are paid protesters, so if you feel the need to gratuitously piss one off that might get the job done). At least one Tea Party speaker explicitly stated something along the lines of "in this country we have freedom of speech, and freedom of religion.." I don't remember the exact words, but at the time I took it as holding the proper meaning.

I also was at the San Jose Tea Party. My post can be found here: http://aisaacademy.wordpress.com/2009/04/16/tea-party/(I gave Jenn's video clip top billing b/c I think it is so great!)When I was there (12:30-1:30) the numbers were small--maybe 300, but in the evening, the police estimated that a couple thousand participated.My experience coincides with Trasinski's description: "The people who came out on Wednesday do not represent an inchoate, inarticulate rage. The only people who are really motivated right now are those who are motivated by some form of ideological opposition to big government."The signs indicated an understanding that Obama's policies are socialistic, and that socialism means trouble.

Thanks for putting together this collection. It's a point of view not found elsewhere--and it's encouraging.

Regarding the secular nature of protests in the south: Speaking just for the protest in Tallahassee, it was far more secular than I anticipated, but what I anticipated was a church meeting. There were only a couple of the signs I saw that pushed a religious viewpoint. Most of them said something about spending, taxation, and/or debt. On the other hand, every speaker ended his speech with "God bless America," and it got a big cheer every time.